


Shadow of the Bat

by Badwolf36



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Constantine (TV), Constantine: The Hellblazer (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Bat Brothers, Bat God, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Bisexual John, Curse Breaking, Curses, Demon Summoning, Demonic Possession, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Evil Green Jacuzzi, Gen, Harry Potter References, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jason Todd Questions His Sexuality, Jason Todd is Red Hood, John Is Not Subtle When He Wants Someone, Lazarus Pit, Magic, Magical Illness, Possession, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 22:39:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15129278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: John Constantine wasn't the first choice for dealing with the Red Hood's Lazarus Pit-related illness. But since he's the only option Jason and Dick have, he shows up. After all, dealing with a little dark magic is just a normal walk down a filthy alley for John.In which there are bat gods, John's usual brand of guilt, and Jason Todd once again getting bound further to the magical side of the world. Also, Dick Grayson being a concerned brother and causing chick flick moments.





	Shadow of the Bat

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Dick Grayson says as he ushers John Constantine into a small, shabby apartment that screams “safe house.”

John raises an eyebrow at the vigilante, who looks less than imposing in dark jeans and a bright blue T-shirt. He’s shifting his weight nervously on his bare feet, looking only a moment away from bolting.

“Not usually the reaction people have to me, mate,” John says. He graciously lets the other man take his tan trench coat and hang it up on a rack in the corner that already holds a brown leather jacket and a heavy gray canvas one. “Never mind that. Three questions. One, is Tall and Broody going to come crashing through the window now that I’m in his territory?”

Dick doesn’t pretend not to know exactly who he’s talking about. “The other family members are aware of the situation, but are letting me handle it for now. Batman doesn’t know you’re here. At least not that I’ve heard of. After all, supernatural things aren’t exactly his wheelhouse.”

“Funny coming from a guy who’s best friends with an alien and a goddess, but to each their own.” John fishes in the pocket of his black slacks for a moment before coming up with a crumpled Silk Cut packet. Shaking one of the cigarettes out, he tucks it between his lips before putting the pack away. He’s about to light it with a little sleight of hand when he sees the utterly disapproving look on Dick’s face.

“Fine,” he mumbles, plucking the cigarette from his mouth and tucking it behind his right ear. “Second question: Why not call Zee?”

“Zatanna’s on the other side of the world right now. I didn’t get all the details, but something about a mystical amulet. She said you could help us.”

“Bird’s got entirely too much faith in me. Gonna get her killed. And third question: Where is he?”

“Bathroom,” Dick says. “His temperature spiked, and I had to…had to get him cooled down. He’s…I’m glad you’re here.”

John startles at that and looks up to study the other man. Dick looks like he hasn’t slept in days. His black hair is greasy and sticking up in spots, like he keeps yanking on it. The deep, baggy under-eye circles attest to stress that hasn’t let up for days. It’s hard to believe this less-than-imposing figure is the same one that strikes fear into the hearts of law-breaking Gothamites as Nightwing. John isn’t one to judge though. He’s sure he looked worse when he banished his first demon after his last Ravenscar stay.

“I’m not promising anything,” he cautions. He unbuttons the cuffs of his long-sleeved, white button-up and rolls them back. “I’m not the expert in this. Although, the _expert_ is a damned lunatic running something he honestly calls the League of Assassins, so I don’t blame you for calling me.”

He doesn’t wait to see Dick’s reaction as he pushes open the bathroom door.

The sight of the man in the dinged-up porcelain tub is even more pitiful than his supposed brother. Jason Todd, the fearsome Red Hood, is dressed only in a pair of black boxer briefs. Three blue ice packs are tucked strategically against his armpits and groin, and there’s a damp, threadbare, white towel draped across his chest. His face is sweaty and pale, his black hair matted to his skull. His eyes, which were shut, flutter open when he hears John enter.

The Lazarus Pit green that colors his irises is the whole reason John’s here.

“Ah hell. You’ve gone and done it now, Little Red Riding Hood.”

Jason blinks lethargically a few times, obviously processing, before he slurs out, “S’not my name.”

“Well, sometimes you don’t get to choose your nicknames, Little Red.” John kneels on a once-white bathmat sporting old bloodstains that didn’t come out in the wash. “How long has the eye thing been happening?”

Dick is the one to answer with, “Less than a day. He was sick before that, but we’re not sure for how long. We only found out he was sick at all because he fainted on patrol.”

“D’dn’t faint,” Jason interjects weakly.

“You fell off a 10-story building, Jay!” Dick snaps. “You’re lucky I was there!”

There’s a charged pause before the man in the tub deflates. “Y’h. Srry.”

John quickly gathers from Dick’s expression that capitulation is not usually part of Jason’s M.O.

“I thought the Pit tended to make folks who took a dip in it more…” John says, trying to get the other two men back on track.

“Crazy?” Dick offers, while Jason comes up with, “H’mcidal?”

“Yeah.”

“Inwards,” Jason murmurs. “Turned it.”

John arches a brow, turning to Dick for an explanation. However, Dick’s face has gone steely as he glares at the dingy white paint of the bathroom’s far wall. Sighing, John really wishes he could light his cigarette.

“And that means what, exactly?”

In response, Jason weakly raises his left arm, which had been tucked on the opposite side of his body. The white bandage there was already staining itself red and crimson with blood, but the dual half-moon pattern was unmistakable as anything but teeth marks.

Jason winces as he sets his arm back down, and John winces right along with him.

“Right. Inward,” he mutters. “Okay. Anything else relevant you boys care to share with teacher?”

“Feels like…” Jason murmurs, then trails off. His eyes close before he speaks again. “S’like I’m dying. ‘Gain. H’rts less though. No…crowb’rs.”

There’s a choked-off noise over John’s shoulder, but he ignores Dick’s grief in favor of the issue at hand.

“So there’s a chance your little dip in old al Ghul’s bathtub is wearing off, eh?”

“M’kes sense,” Jason whispers, practical even in the face of another trip to the grave. “Sucks.”

“Well, you’re not wrong. But let’s see if we can’t keep you six feet above ground for a while, yeah?”

For some reason, Jason seems to find this amusing, if the wheezing little noise he lets out is in fact a snicker.

“’Xactly,” he gasps out. “Six feet plus and taller than Dickface. All the sh’rt jokes.”

John huffs in amusement, catching Dick’s face doing something complicated out of the corner of his eye.

“Payback’s a bitch,” John agrees, interlacing his fingers before turning them out, popping the tiny joints. He sits up on his knees, leaning forward and resting the thumb and middle finger of his right hand on either side of Jason’s eye sockets.

The heat of Jason’s skin is unnatural. John almost checks for burns on his fingertips. It takes him a moment to concentrate, opening his Sight so that he can _see_.

Once he manages, he gives Jason a full once-over (an action that, if Jason survives, he’d like to repeat. The man is _fit_ ). The toxic green of the Lazarus Pit is easy to trace as it flows through him like sludge. But…John squints…there’s something else there. A vein of sickly purple that just screams “dark magic.”

“You piss anyone supernatural off lately, Hood?”

“No m’re than usual.”

John blinks hard a few times, pulls away from Jason, and sits back on his heels. He glances back up to Dick, who already looks like John has delivered them both a death sentence.

“Good news is that it’s not the Lazarus Pit. Least, not more than usual.”

“’nd the bad?” Jason whispers, and John is frankly surprised he’s still coherent.

“You’ve been cursed. Whatever it is, it’s meant to trigger some of the Pit’s nastier side effects.”

“What can we do?” Dick asks, doing an admirable job of controlling the tremor in his voice. “There’s got to be something we can do, right?”

John’s about to respond when Jason whimpers, his eyes shooting open and shining brightly enough to wash the bathroom in a viridian glow.

“D’n’t. Don’t let me…” he chokes, blood spilling from his lips. Then, three plaintive ( _scared_ ) words sure to join the chorus that haunts John in all his waking and sleeping moments slip into the air. “Stop me, John.”

“Bollocks.”

John’s options, in the seconds he has to pick one, aren’t good. Protect himself and Dick, and Jason will end himself by finishing the job he started with his wrist and his teeth. Protect Jason, and he’s likely to murder John and then Dick with extreme and brutal prejudice. Try to dispel the magic sending the Pit into overdrive, and it’s sure to backfire in fantastically horrific ways.

“Bollocks,” he repeats, then throws himself into the tub on top of Jason. It’s a tight fit, but he manages to get his admittedly bony knees jammed on top of Jason’s forearms before the other man can crack him in the jaw.

John slams his hand against Jason’s towel-covered chest as he surges up with a scream that borders on inhuman.

“ _Camazotz, protect your child of darkness_ ,” John chants. His Mayan is so rusty that he’s positive he’s insulting the death bat, so he risks the English for the sake of clarity and intent. “Camazotz, take the sacrifice of his blood and nightmares. See in him a kindred soul, willing to snatch off the heads of his enemies to protect that which is his. Camazotz, hear me! Hear me! Hear me!”

The snap of power is electric as the call goes out. For a fleeting moment, John believes it works.

Then Jason screams again, his flesh heating up beneath John to the point where the damp towel and the ice packs start steaming. Dick appears at John’s side, shoving a rolled-up towel between Jason’s head and the porcelain his skull had been about to slam down on as attempts to buck John off.

Dick falls to his knees beside the tub, restraining his brother as best he can with a grip on his shoulder and a hand across his forehead.

“Jay! Little Wing! You don’t have to hurt anyone! Not even you. Come back to us. _You can come home_!” The mantra continues, a string of pleas and reassurances that fall on deaf ears.

“Yeah, Little Red Riding Hood,” John adds. He grips the rapidly heating edges of the tub, shoving his full body weight down in an increasingly futile attempt to keep Jason in place. He’s searching his mind for other deities he can call on, restraining spells he can use, anything. “You going to be defeated by an evil green Jacuzzi and some dark magic? That gonna be your legacy? What happened to crime boss? Scourge of the criminal underworld? Failed Robin?”

Jason stills for a moment. The reprieve is temporary though. He howls again, the sound stripping off his vocal cords like duct tape off flesh. The heavily muscled body underneath John’s legs bucks hard enough that John feels like a bull rider (and he can’t even appreciate the moment like he really wants to).

“Can’t you do something?” Dick asks, breaking off his fervent pleas to Jason to beseech John.

“Unless you know who cursed him and with what, no, not bloody really!”

John starts to feel something soak through his slacks to his calves. Twisting around to look, he realizes Jason has managed to get his nails into his own bare thighs and ripped the flesh open. In his head, John realizes the Wayne boys, by simple association with him, may be cursed to die in the same excruciating fashion as all who come into John’s sphere. In reality, he shifts his knees so he can pin down Jason’s fingers.

“Sodding hell! Jason, don’t you dare, don’t you dare! I didn’t come to sodding Gotham to watch you die in a sodding bathtub!”

Jason doesn’t respond beyond a whimper, squeezing his eyes shut. The green glow still spills out from underneath his lids though. He’s writhing even harder now, body twisting as much as John will let it.

And then, suddenly, there’s a _shadow_. The sickly glow given off by the light bar atop the bathroom vanity extinguishes with a _pop_! as the darkness slips into the room, coating everything within it with blackness. Jason’s eyes open, displaying the same fathomless black as their surroundings. His frantic movement slows, then stops; a long exhale marking the action.

“I have heard,” Jason intones in a voice that sends a chill straight down John’s spine. Beside him, he can sense Dick freeze. “The call is answered. The sacrifice?”

John stammers for a moment, frankly shocked that a death god has answered his plea without immediately talking about the status of John’s soul.

“The…uh…for sacrifice, Camazotz, take the blood that’s already been spilt this night. I offer the suffering in this room tonight. Take the taint you see within him.” John abruptly considers the consequences of Camazotz taking away the influence of the Lazarus Pit, and nearly throws up. Another soul on his conscience. “The sacrifice is named as the blighted curse which courses through his veins and poisons his essence, but not the veridian venom that binds his soul to this plane. Do you accept these terms?”

There’s a heavy pause. John hears Dick take a breath, like he’s considering sweetening the deal. John throws out his left hand without looking, striking Dick in the chest and hoping that conveys his meaning clearly enough. He’s too focused on Jason and the god possessing him to spare a second for a glare.

The darkness in the room gets heavier, weighing down on them all.

“Do…you…accept?” he grits out, struggling to get the words past the pressure rising in his chest.

Jason (Camazotz), unmoving beneath him, takes his time considering. The thickness in the room keeps gathering all the while, a slow suffocating sensation.

“The sacrifice is acceptable. A kindred bond has been acknowledged.”

Several things happen at once. Jason goes completely limp beneath John, John is knocked completely off the other man, out of the tub, and onto Dick, and implosive force (enough to further crack the already cracked bathroom walls) marks the shadow leaving the tiny bathroom.

John takes a bare moment to account for all his limbs and Dick Grayson’s continued existence before he scrambles to his knees. He thrusts two fingers against Jason’s neck, noting the lack of blood across the man’s face and the tub’s surface. He hadn’t been sure that would work, but older gods tend to prefer sacrifices, particularly blood sacrifices.

And then John’s breath catches as he doesn’t find the pulse he’s looking for.

“Constantine?” Dick questions shakily from beside John, where he’s managed to pull himself together in admirable fashion.

“No pulse,” he states grimly.

“No,” Dick says, and then he’s shoving John’s hand out of the way to get his own fingers on Jason. After a moment, his sickened expression eases. “He’s got a pulse. It’s slow, but he’s got one.”

“Ah.” John might thank some deity if it wouldn’t inevitably lead to trouble. But he does allow himself the relief that runs through him like cool water. “That’s…definitely something in our favor.”

He leans forward as Dick shifts back, the other man sighing with relief. He peels back Jason’s left eyelid with the pad of his thumb. Mercifully, he finds only the familiar green-tinged aquamarine he’s known since he first met Jason Todd.

“I think…I think that worked.”

John collapses back down on the bath mat beside Dick. Dick leans his shoulder against John, the pair of them holding one another up. Dick grabs Jason’s hand, balancing it on the edge of the tub so they’re connected, but still comfortable.

“So…” Dick finally drawls after they’ve sat in silence for a few minutes.

“You’re lucky your old man chose a bat as his symbol,” John says. “And that that actually worked.”

“Who’s Camazotz?”

“Literal meaning is ‘death bat.’ Mayan bat god. Because of the association, he was able to use Jason as a totem of sorts.”

“That going to keep happening?” Dick asks, worry suffusing his voice. “Did we just make Jason into, like, an easy possession target?”

John snorts. “I appreciate you saying ‘we,’ as if what just happened is anyone’s fault but mine.”

“You mean you saving Jason from ripping himself or us apart while under the influence of dark magic? Yeah, how terrible of you,” Dick mocks, moving forward so John can see him grin. His tone quickly goes serious though. “Really, John. Thank you.”

Dick squeezes Jason’s hand. John isn’t sure if it’s the motion or if it was just time, but Jason groans.

John and Dick both get back up onto their knees to look in on the other man.

“Jay?”

“Jason?”

Jason’s long eyelashes flutter, finally revealing the groggy look in his eyes. His gaze rolls around to the ceiling and the walls before landing on the two faces hovering over him.

“So…,” Jason whispers, his voice as gravelly as a long stretch of road. “I’m not dead. Again. That’s cool.”

Dick huffs out a laugh that sounds half hysterical.

“Yeah. Still with us, Little Wing.”

John lets the brothers have their moment, grabbing his cigarette from behind his ear and sticking it in his mouth so he can chew on the filter.

Quiet whispers fill the space. Eventually, Jason snorts and whispers, “No chick flick moments, Dickiebird.”

Laughing wetly, Dick finally sits back down. John notes that he doesn’t relinquish Jason’s hand though, and the other man doesn’t try to shake him off.

“John?” Jason asks, sounding shakier than John’s ever heard him.

“Yeah?” John flicks his now soggy cigarette in the trash bin.

Jason reaches up with his other hand. John is pleased to see the lack of blood on the bandage still wrapped around his wrist.

Catching the calloused fingers in his own, John starts slowly tracing Jason’s knuckles with his thumb.

“Gave us a right scare, you did. All the same to you, I’d appreciate if you never did that again.”

“Agreed,” Jason rasps out.

He tries to sit up a little, and John helps him. The melted ice packs fall off into the tub, and the towel (completely dry) flops down over Jason’s lap.

John keeps Jason’s hand, feeling the minute tremors in his fingers. Possession always left a mark, even well-meaning possession.

“Dick, this bolt hole have any chocolate? It’ll help with some of the aftereffects.”

Dick’s face lights up. “Like Harry Potter?”

“Did a dementor possess me, or what?” Jason adds sarcastically, although John can sense an undercurrent of genuine nervousness.

John sighs. “Close enough. That Rowling bird must have a contact with some magical talent. Now, chocolate? Yes?”

Dick is still grinning as he gets to his feet. He seems reluctant to leave, but goes after squeezing Jason’s hand one more time.

Once Dick is out of the room, John knows he only has a few minutes (if that) to say what needs to be said.

“Jason…”

But Jason cuts him off. “You saved me, or got something to save me, but magic always comes with a price, right?”

John nods, chagrinned to find Jason has beaten him to the punch.

Jason sighs, and slumps over the edge of the bathtub. He starts shivering, and John starts looking around for something to remedy that issue. He finds a pile of black clothing which, when shook out, proves to be a well-worn black tank top and soft black sweats.

“No offense, Constantine,” Jason finally gathers himself to say, “but sometimes the shit from your side of the fence just plain sucks.”

“You’re not wrong there, Little Red.” John takes his time studying Jason, hoping that Camazotz really did do exactly as was promised.

“Ass. You going to be around when this inevitably goes to hell?”

“With bells on, Jason.”

“John?”

“Mmm?”

“You going to give me those clothes or just keep checking me out?”

John smirks. “Can’t blame a guy when the view’s that good.”

“Ha,” Jason snorts. “Try it again when I haven’t just gone ten rounds with my own subconscious and some sort of eldritch god.”

“That a promise?”

Jason rolls his head along the porcelain until he can look at John, interested consideration in his teal gaze.

“You know, I genuinely don’t know,” he says after a long pause. “I wasn’t really around long enough the first go-around to form a solid opinion.

John smiles and moves closer with the clothes. “Fair enough. Me? I’m up for pretty much anything. You recover and figure it out, you’ve got my card.”

“Deal.” Jason lifts his arms as best he can, and John helps him into the tank top.

Dick reenters the bathroom then, brandishing three candy bars stuck between his fingers like claws. “I’ve got Hershey’s, Butterfinger, and a Milky Way.”

John snags the Hershey’s bar from his hands, tears open the wrapper, snaps off a couple of brown rectangles, and shoves them into Jason’s mouth. Jason snarls, but it’s hard to be unhappy with a mouth full of chocolate.

John flops down on his butt, stuffing a few rectangles in his own mouth. Dick, seeing that he’s no longer immediately needed, sets the Milky Way on the corner of the pedestal sink, and then settles down with the Butterfinger.

Jason leans over and snags the candy out of his hand the moment he gets it open.

“Hey!” Dick protests, but John notices him hide a smile as he gets back up to retrieve the other candy bar.

The three of them sit there, quietly munching their chocolate for several long minutes.

John notes Jason’s bites get slower and slower. It matches how long his eyelids start staying closed. John stuffs the rest of the Hershey’s bar into his mouth and chews as fast as he can.

“Okay,” he says, slapping his hands against his knees. Jason startles a little, but Dick just looks at him in askance. “Jason, do you feel less like you’re about to go on a demonic rampage?”

“Constantine!” Dick snaps, horrified, but Jason snorts.

“Slightly less homicidal than normal, yes.”

“Jason!”

“Sooo, fancy spending the night somewhere that’s NOT a bathtub?”

In response, Jason weakly lifts his arms, motioning them over with the hand still clutching one-quarter of a Butterfinger bar.

“Good enough for me.” John rises to his feet, pulling Dick to his as well. John snatches the candy from Jason’s hand and sets it on the counter, then begins the arduous process of maneuvering a very large man out of a very small tub with the help of another large man. John swears as he feels something in his back wrench hard as they finally get Jason standing, but clenches his teeth and deals with it as Jason steps onto the bathmat.

They get Jason into the abandoned sweatpants with a minimum of fuss, but Jason is practically hanging between Dick and John’s arms by then.

“John?” Jason murmurs. John looks up, and realizes they have just moments before Jason passes out and takes them all down.

“Right, right. Moving along.”

A quick glance at Dick shows he’s come to the same conclusion. They work together to hustle Jason out to the safehouse’s bed (which is a king-sized mattress on the hardwood floor, but with surprisingly high thread-count white sheets).

“Oooof,” Jason says with an amusing amount of over-exaggeration when they finally get him laying down. He spends a moment fussing with the sheet and red fleece blanket Dick tugs over him, then hesitates. “Will…um…that is…if you’re not…if you could…”

“I’m staying,” Dick announces brightly. “Got to look after you, Little Wing. After all, you still haven’t told me the story of why you can pull swords from thin air!”

John raises an eyebrow at Jason, who looks equal parts relieved and embarrassed. “You’ve got the All-Blades?”

“Long story,” Jason grins. “You’re…uh…welcome to stick around to hear it. If you don’t mind me taking a nap first. And possibly trying to kill you.”

John shakes his head. Bats himself is crazy, why should his kids be any different?

“I’ve got to…” John starts, and Jason’s grin fades (like he’s set himself up for disappointment and is beating himself up for falling for it). “…nip out for a smoke, but that’s a story I’d like to hear. And if you try to kill me, don’t come crying when a few spells knock you on your fine arse.”

Jason’s grin comes back even as he throws an arm over his eyes.

“Works for me.”

John nods at Dick, who has taken up vigil on one side of the huge bed.

After retrieving his trench coat from the coatrack by the door, John shrugs it on. He walks over to the window and disables the trap there before slipping out to the fire escape. Digging out his cigarettes, he lights up a Silk Cut with a snap of his fingers. Nicotine finally hitting his lungs, he contemplates the clusterfuck that’s sure to come of dealing with Camazotz. He also ruminates on other, less horrifying, parts of the evening.

 _All in all_ , he thinks, _and I will never, ever tell her this, but I’m glad Zee wasn’t around to help._ He ponders Jason’s cocky grin, and the small, nervous smile he’d given John when contemplating a nice tumble in the sack with the Laughing Magician. _Very glad._

**Author's Note:**

> In researching who could play the spirit John calls upon, I came across Camzotz, a death bat who literally snatched a person's head off. Could there be a more kindred spirit for Jason "Stuffed the Heads of Crime Lord Second-in-Commands Into a Duffle Bag" Todd? I think not. 
> 
> Also, comments are really, truly loved and appreciated. Let me know if you liked the story!


End file.
